


The Universe's Shittiest Nap

by thelocalace



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura and Lance are Siblings, But bros just the same, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Hunk and Lance are bros, I just really love altean lance, I just really love sibling relationships, Im making it multi chapter because I hate myself, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Pining, Team Voltron Family, There's probably gonna be klance, adoptive bros, allura's older, and my boys are gay, bc I love Matt he's so good, bc I'm gay, bc lance and Keith are dumb shits, but not til later, coran is a nerd and I love him, domestic as fuck yo, idek what i'm doing, it's hecka slow burn tho, just a smidge, lil bit of angst, my boi Matt is gonna be in this, protective space sibling, shiro and Keith are actual bros, this is gonna be long yo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8733799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelocalace/pseuds/thelocalace
Summary: Altean Lance AULance wakes up to find four humans in his sister's castle-ship. Oh and he, his sister, and their royal advisor, Coran, are the last surviving Alteans while their old as quiznak enemy, Zarkon, has taken over most of the known universe. So that's peachy. Mostly from Lance's POV but there's POV for everyone.





	1. Chapter 1

There was a soft hiss of air and the world suddenly became foggy and unclear.

"Allura-" Lance tripped, reaching out for his sister only to fall into a large... something.

"Um." 

"What the quiznak?" His legs still refusing to work, Lance blinked away the remaining blurriness and found himself leaning on a rather startled looking person. 

Lance yelped and stumbled away. Looking around he counted three others in addition the the one infront of him. "Where's Allura?" He demanded.

"Who?" The short one questioned.

"My sister, Allura. Princess of Altea?" Behind him another hiss sounded and Lance ran to catch his sister as she fell.

"Father!" She called. "Lance? What's going on, where's father?"

"I don't know, but these guys are here." Lance gestured to the strange people behind him.

Allura straightened. "Who are you? How did you get in here? Where's our father?" She demanded.

"Woah, lady, calm down. We're just as confused as you are." The small one spoke up again. "I'm Pidge."

"Uh, I'm Hunk." The yellow one tentatively raised a hand.

"Keith." The one in the short red jacket crossed his arms.

"And I'm Shiro." The tallest one, with a strange white tuft of hair said, offering a small smile.

Lance rushed to the controls, placing his hands on the panels. Frantically he swiped through information as his sister questioned the intuders.

"Where are the paladins of voltron?"

This time the tall one answered. "I'm not sure who the 'paladins of voltron' are but a giant yellow lion took us here." Another hiss was heard, Lance barely registered Coran stumbling out of the pod.

"Allura... Coran.." Lance paled. "We.. we've been asleep for 10,000 years.."

"What? Lance don't joke." Allura warned.

"I'm not joking. Coran, you, and I are the last Alteans left. We've been in cryosleep for the last ten thousands years." Lance paused. "That's like one thousand plus ten" 

"Times ten." 'Keith' called out.

Lance pouted. "Same difference."

Coran placed a comforting hand on Allura and Lance's shoulders. "Let's go figure this out, shall we?"

They nodded. 

"Coran, stay with them. Lance and I need to talk." Allura asked as she led her brother out of the room.

\-------------------

"Quiznak." Lance cursed. "How is Zarkon not dead? Man, he is so old now."

It was several hours later, and the Alteans had just about finished catching up on most of what they had missed.

"Lance, we're technically 10,000 years older, too." Allura pointed out.

"Oh my cheese, we totally are!" Lance's eyed widened. "Allura, we're old people now!"

Allura rolled her eyes. "You're focusing on the wrong part, Lance. Zarkon has been taking over the universe for the past ten thousand years. His empire is huge and you're the only paladin left, Lance."

"We can find new paladins. Hey, that big guy, what's his name? Hunk? He flew the yellow lion here didn't he? That's gotta count for something."

"What about the other lions? Do you suggest we let these humans pilot the lions of voltron?" Allura raised an eyebrow.

"We don't really have any other choice. We have to stop Zarkon. Voltron is the only way to do that." Lance looked away. "I don't like this any more than you do, Allura. The paladins were my friends."

Allura placed a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Okay. Let's go tell the others."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lions are assigned.  
> Keith is a sass, Lance is Not Apreciative.  
> Hunk eats weird space goo.  
> And Coran is bad at math.

"Hunk, don't eat that." Pidge warned.

"Why?" Hunk asked, a spoon of the weird green food goo half-way to his mouth.

"What if it kills you?" She reasoned.

"But what if it's delicious?" Hunk argued back, already having eaten the spoonful.

"If you die, I won't cry at your funeral." Pidge deadpanned.

"Oh man, that's weird. Keith, try this." Hunk offered a spoonful to his friend.

"I am not putting that in my mouth." 

Right then the doors behind them opened, revealing the two aliens from before.

"Excuuse you, but I'll have you know Altean food goo is very good for you." Lance glared at Keith. "Don't insult my green goo."

"Still not putting it in my mouth." Keith crossed his arms. "Did you and your sister figure out what's going on yet?"

"As a matter of fact we did." Lance narrowed his eyes at Keith.

"We have bad news. Zarkon is on his way here now. Coran, how long did you say it would be?" Allura asked.

"Ah," Coran started counting on his fingers. "Multiply by the distance.. minus seven... About two days?" He shrugged.

"We need voltron." Lance turned to the humans. "My fellow paladins aren't here anymore, but if the yellow lion brought you all here, it must mean something."

"What.. are you saying?" Pidge sat up.

"We need you four to locate and pilot the remaining lions." Allura finished.

"It's the only chance we have. Zarkon is looking for the lions, they're the only thing that can stop him. We need your help." Lance linked his hand with his sister's, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"We'll do it." Shiro nodded. "The lion took us here for a reason. I've seen what Zarkon does. We can't let him get hold of the lions."

"So.. if there's five lions, who's going to fly which?"

"I already have that figured out." Allura smiled. She tapped the control panel and a huge map flew up around them.

"These look like coordinates. Two of the lions are right here." Pidge pushed her glasses up.

"Oo, look at your primitive synapses firing away!" Coran spoke giddily. 

"That's exactly it, Pidge. The Black lion is in the castle still, hidden from Zarkon. And the yellow lion brought you here." Allura swiped at the air infront of her. "The lions choose their pilots. It is a mystical bond and cannot be forced. The quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in his lion. Together, they form something greater than science can explain. The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron, and cannot be accessed until the other four are present. It will take a pilot who is a born leader and in control at all times, someone whose men will follow without hesitation." Allura turned to Shiro "That is why, Shiro, you will pilot the Black Lion."

Lance stepped next to his sister, turning the map "The Green Lion has an inquisitive personality and needs a pilot of intellect and daring. Pidge, you'll pilot the Green Lion." He smiled warmly.

"The Yellow Lion is caring and kind. It's pilot is one who puts the needs of others above his own. His heart must be mighty. As the leg of Voltron, you will lift the team up and hold them together." Both Alteans smiled at Hunk. "Hunk, you will pilot the Yellow lion." 

"Whaaat?" Hunk looked around as if the princess could be referring to someone behind him.

"The Red Lion is temperamental and the most difficult to master. It's faster and more agile than the others, but also more unstable. Its pilot needs to be someone who relies more on instincts than skill alone. Keith, you will fly the Red Lion." Allura turned to Keith, who nodded.

Lance huffed. 

"What about the blue lion?" Hunk asked. 

"I'm already the blue lion's pilot." Lance smirked. 

"Unfortunately, the Blue lion's coordinates can't be found. But I'm sure after 10000 years, a tune up will solve this." Assured the princess.

"Alright then. Hunk, you go with Keith to find the Red lion. I'll go with Pidge to find the Green lion. Lance, I guess you can stay here and help your sister with repairs?" Shiro deligated. 

"Yeah. I guess. Coran, help me get a pod ready for Pidge and Shiro." Lance jogged out of the room, Coran not far behind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Allura cry over mice  
> Coran does not warn the paladins.  
> And Keith bonds with his robo space kitty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lil bit of POV switching will be implimented so we get the whole bonding-with-space-cats experience from everyone.

"We can only keep the wormholes that lead to the other lions open for two of your Earth hours, so you'll have to be quick about your work." Coran warned, smiling all too brightly. "The good news is that according to my readings, both planets are relatively peaceful. So, if you do get stuck, they could be relaxing places to live out the rest of your lives. Well, enjoy the trip!"

"Wait, what? No!"

"Coran, what the heck?"

The paladins protested to no avail, they were already on their way through the wormholes. 

"Coran," Lance mused. "You probably should have warned them before they left."

"Hm. I suppose. But they might not have followed through, then. Come on, help me with these repairs while your sister works on the defenses."

"Right," Lance began to follow Coran when a small noise caught his attention. "Did you hear that?" He almost whispered the question, as if raising his voice would scare off whatever made the noise.

"Hear what, Lance?" Coran spoke at his normal booming volume. 

There was another sound. A squeak?

"That, there!" The prince exclaimed, inching towards the sound. It was coming from the cryopod Allura had been in.

"What on Altea?" Lance heard Coran whisper but it was quickly drowned out by a squeal from Lance.

"We're not the last Alteans! Look, Coran, mice!" Lance beamed as he knelt down to the small creatures.

"Oh my, they must have been in the cryopod with your sister!" Coran exclaimed.

"ALLURA!" Lance shouted for his elder sister. Within seconds the princess was skidding into the room, eyes wide with worry.

"What is it Lance? Are you okay?!" She frantically checked all over Lance for any sign of injury or distress.

"What? Yes, I'm fine. Jeez, you're such a mom." He smirked.

Allura rolled her eyes. "Then what did you yell for?"

"Look!" Lance leant down and scooped up the mice in his hands. "We aren't the last ones left!"

Allura's mouth parted silently, her breath stuck in her chest.

"How- where? We're they in the cryopods?" She finally managed.

Coran nodded. "In yours, princess."

Allura wiped at her eyes and smiled. "Hello little ones." she scratched behind one of the mice's ears and it nuzzled into her hand.

"Are you okay, Allura?" Lance's voice held concern.

"Yes, I am okay. Just happy. I was scared we were all that was left of our home." She smiled tearfully.

After a moment Allura cleared her throat and straitened up. "Well, no time to dawdle, I'll be in the control room if you need me."

Coran and Lance watched as the princess left, four little mice trailing behind her.

\----------

Keith was not in the greatest of moods. 

To be fair though, he wasn't often in a great mood to begin with. Today was different, however. Even though he had managed to find Shiro after a year missing with the help of his crew mates Pidge and Hunk, they were still on the other side of the damn universe. Looking for a magic alien spaceship. Shaped like a lion. Sure, he'd seen the marking on the cave back on earth for the Yellow lion but he never imagined it would lead to anything like this.

On the other side of the universe looking for MORE alien cat warships?

Coran and Allura seemed nice enough, but that Altean, Lance, didn't seem to like Keith. He wasn't sure why, but that bothered him.

He didn't have any more time to think on this however, as Hunk's shouting cut through his thoughts. 

"Keith!" Hunk yelled, waving a hand in front of Keith's face. "Dude are you alive?"

Keith shook his head. "Yeah, just thinking."

"Well, we're here."

Keith moved to see out of the Lion. The planet was absolutely nothing like earth, was the first thing Keith noticed. 

Pink, grass-like plants covered much of the terrain, every once and a while a patch of deep purple, almost black, earth (could it be called earth?) peeked out. Growing among the pink grass were specks of white and yellow flowers, their appearance cloud like from a distance. A small distance away the pink grass became taller and darker in color, maybe two feet tall, but nothing of any significant height grew. Looking up the sky was a rich orange, fading into a purply-blue as it darkened. Clouds hung in the sky, a yellow so light it was almost white. As far as Keith could see there were no Galra in the area, in fact, no one at all a part from Hunk and himself.

Keith wasn't sure what he was expecting the planet to look like, but it wasn't the pink and orange scenery before him.

"Its pretty" Hunk stated.

"Yeah, it is." He agreed.

"Let's get going, remember what Coran said about the wormholes?" 

Keith shuddered. "Yeah, as pretty as this planet is, I DON'T want to be stuck here."

They agreed that Hunk would stay with his lion, incase Keith needed emergency backup and as a precaution if anyone showed up with plans to snatch up the Lions.

"Good luck, man." Hunk gave Keith a hardy slap on the back. "Go bond with a metal space kitty."

"Please never call it that again." Keith laughed as he waved, looking towards the tracker in his hands. His lion shouldn't be far.

It took maybe twenty minutes but eventually Keith ran into the mouth of a well-disguised cave. Vines and moss of a more orangy pink color shielded the entrance from anyone not looking for it. Fortunatly, Keith was looking for it.

Tentatively pushing past the flora and squinting his eyes to adjust to the sudden change in light Keith looked around. 

"Aha!" As soon as he stepped in, carvings on the wall, just like the ones back on earth, lit up red. Keith put away his tracker in favor of following the carvings.

A few minutes, and several booby traps (one causing a slight scrape on his cheek) later, Keith found the glowing shield dome protecting his lion, the soft light muffled by a curtain of more alien foliage.

"Bingo." Keith grinned. "C'mon, open up." He stepped forward expecting the shield to fall like yellow's had for Hunk. "What? Come on, it's me. Keith. Your buddy. Your pal- I am your paladin." He stretched out the words, exasperated. "Are you kidding me?" He looked expectantly at the lion, pouting at the silent treatment attitude the lion was giving him.

The Red Lion simply sat there. Ignoring him. /taunting him/. 

"I'm TRYING to bond with you. I'm kinda on a time limit here." Keith huffed. He knocked on the shield. "Open up, man." 

When that didn't work he started pulling at the vines hanging down and veiling the lion. When they were too strong to pull off Keith used them as a rope to climb to the top of the shield dome. Once there he gathered the majority of the vines together and began to saw at them with his knife. Why? He wasn't sure. It just felt right. Maybe the lion would acknowledge him if he cleared away the vines covering it?

The entire time he was still calling out to the red lion. "This is me, bonding with you.", "C'mon kitty, we're connected!", and "I really don't wanna be stuck on this planet because my lion won't let me bond with it." Eventually Keith shifted his stance to reach and cut the rest of the vines, tripping on one at his feet.

He slipped off the dome and all Keith could think was "I'm so glad pidge can't see this" as he fell to his presumed death. 

Impact came much faster than expected and it took a moment for Keith to realize one, he wasn't dead, just winded. And two, the red lion had caught him on her snout. His face split in an adrenaline induced grin. 

"Good kitty."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge is stress personified.  
> Shiro needs a nap.  
> Coran is really bad a math.  
> And Allura is Too Old For This Shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kinda short and a little late but finals are hell.  
> Anyway here's wonderwall.

Pidge was not calm. Sure, she only had a few hours to find the green lion and get back to the castle, but that wasn't what she was worried about. Pidge did her best to avoid the ebbing fear for now, though.

"Okay," she said, eyes trained on the tracker in her hands. "According to this were headed in the right direction." Pidge stopped breifly next to Shiro's vague figure, not bothering to really look. When instead there stood a bipedal sloth alien, Pidge screamed. She jumped backwards scrambling up the nearest leverage point. Which happened to be Shiro. Shiro would later deny it but he had yelped as well.

After the initial shock Pidge calmed enough to register that the alien didn't seem to be hostile. "Oh it's just a.. a.. whatever.. that is" She trailed off.

The creature made a weird moaning sound, there wasn't any other way to describe it, and seemed to gesture for the pair of humans to follow it to a beached canoe.

"Should we.. trust it?" Pidge hesitated. The bow of the canoe had a lion carved into it, which had to be a step in the right direction, but that sloth thing was creepy.

"I've been held captive on an alien ship for a year," Shiro shrugged and giving Pidge a lopsided smile. "This is nothing."

Pidge followed Shiro onto the boat, even if a bit reluctantly.

Idly, Pidge thought aloud. "I wonder if Hunk and Keith are having as good a time as us."

It didn't take long for Pidge to loosen up once on the water, Shiro thought.

He had been worried when the small paladin was only mumbling out short sentences about how close they were to their goal. Though, hearing the stream of thoughts pouring without filter was.. not exactly better.

"I know Lance and Allura said this is supposed to be my lion, but what if they're wrong? I mean, they're probably not wrong. They're royalty and all, but I'm not a pilot, even though I've always wanted to be a pilot. I mean I read all the fighter manuals, but I never got to fly the simulator. But hey, Hunk did it, he's never flow before either. But what if I get in there and it doesn't respond? What if I get in there and it's too big and my feet don't touch the pedals? What if there aren't even pedals?!"

Even the alien critters around them were exchanging concerned looks at the small human's ramblings.

Shiro probably should have intervened sooner, but honestly, he was in awe of how much Pidge could get out in one breath. It didn't seem human.

Finally he chuckled. "You're rambling. Listen... Our commander on the Kerberos Mission is the smartest man I've ever met, and he always said, "If you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss a chance to do something great.'"

Pidge's eyes widened, taken off guard by the familiar words. Before relaxing like Shiro instructed.

After a short while the canoe bumped gently against land.

The weird alien moaned again.

"Go. Be great." Shiro smiled encouragingly at Pidge.

And Pidge did go, running forward and scrambling up the tall pyramid-esqe structure, crawling over and up the trunk like roots sprawling across it.

When Pidge reached the top she stood for a moment, looking down into the black space below, and then the moment was over. She was jumping down into the darkness and a moment later Shiro heard Pidge whoop before the dome of roots exploded, revealing the Green lion and her pilot.

\-------------------

Keith and Hunk flew back through the wormholes a little after Shiro and Pidge returned and the Alteans greeted them all back warmly.

"You made it," Lance quipped.

"We got into some trouble with some Galra patrol on our way back. If they didn't know we were here before, they do now." Keith explained.

"Still cutting it close."

"Did we find the Blue lion yet?" Shiro asked.

"Allura just located it." Informed Coran. "There's a bit of good news and bad news. The good news is, the Blue Lion's nearby. The bad news is, it's on board that Galra ship now orbiting Arus. But wait, good news again. We're Arus!" The altean ended with a grin far too cheerful for the situation at hand.

"They're here already?"

"Yes. Guess my calculations were a bit off. Finger counting is more of an art, really, than a science."

An unfamiliar voice boomed through the control room. The paladins turned to see a large purple figure on some sort of video feed. "Princess Allura and Prince Lance of Altea, this is Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire.  
I come on behalf of Emperor Zarkon, Lord of the Known Universe. I am here to confiscate the lions. Turn them over to me or I will destroy your planet." With that the transition cut out.

"Let's not panic-" Shiro started.

Hunk cut him off. "Not panic?! The scary purple alien thing is driving his battleship toward us! We only have four lions!" He gestured wildly.

"Technically, only three working lions." Pidge helpfully pointed out.

"That's right. Thank you, Pidge." He took another breath before continuing. "Three working lions and a castle that's, like, 10,000 years old."

"Actually, it's 10,600 years old." Coran popped up behind Hunk. "You see, it was built by my grandfather--"

"Thanks, Coran. Thank you for that." Hunk deadpanned. "See? Now is the perfect time to panic!"

"Wait! This castle has a particle barrier we can activate." Cried Allura.

"Will it really work after so long, Allura?" Lance worried.

"Even if it does, it won't hold Sendak's ion cannon forever." Coran frowned. "The Galran technology must have advanced since we saw them last."

"Panic now?" Hunk asked, almost hopefully.

"No." Both Shiro and Lance chided. 

"We need a plan" Lance told them.

"Yea, get out of here. We could use those wormhole things like before!" Hunk began to describe an escape plan. "Can't form Voltron, we only have three lions. Maybe we could make a snake?"

Lance shook his head. "We're not leaving." 

"We can't just abandon Arus." Allura said, agreeing with her brother.

"But if the Galra capture us, which is very likely, Arus will be doomed anyway. Why risk it?"

"We have to leave."

The small group had become one big argument. Reasonings and insults flew back and forth while Coran and Shiro did their best to calm everyone down.

"How about you shut your quiznak, _Keith._ " Lance spat.

"I don't think you're using that word correctly." 

"How would you know?!"

"Enough!" Shiro shouted, and everyone fell quiet. Speaking in a much softer voice he addressed the Alteans. "Allura, Lance, these are your lions. You've dealt with the Galra before. What do you think we should do?"

Suddenly everyone was staring at the two siblings and Allura shifted uncomfortably under the intense gaze. 

"This is your call sis, you're older anyhow." Lance took a step back.

"I- i don't know.." She admitted.

"Maybe your father can help." Coran suggested.

"Our father?" Lance's eyes widened.

"King Alford knew there was a chance he'd never see the two of you again. Come with me." Then, to the humans, "Wait here. We'll be back shortly."

And with that, Coran led the two out of the control room as the others stared on in confusion.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late everybody! Holidays are crazy and a rare chance for me to catch up on sleep.  
> I promise I'll update more regularly now, at least one long chapter a month. (I'm talking like 2000+ words) I'm sorry it can't be more frequently, my schedule just doesn't allow it.

Lance wasn't sure what he had expected. When Coran had mentioned their father everything turned upside down. He hadn't had time to really think about it yet, but his father was gone. Really truly gone. Allura was his only living family. And Coran, he supposed, though he wasn't blood. Not just that though, _everyone_ he had known was gone save his sister and Coran. Lance decided not to dwell on the thought.

Eventually Coran ushered the siblings into a dimly lit room. A glowing pillar-like object in the center of it.

"Coran what is this?"

"King Alfor knew there was a chance he might never see the two of you again.  
So, his memories, his very being, were stored in this computer for you."

"Allura, Lance!" The hologram of their father smiled. "My children, how I have missed you."

"And us you, father!" Allura blinked hard, tears already forming.

"Father!" Lance's face lit up.

"Father I'm frightened. We all are. A Galra ship is set to attack and I don't know what to do." Allura admitted.

"I would do anything to take this burden from you, my child"

"Please, Father, help us. I don't now if we should run, to preserve whay we have, or stay and risk it all." 

"I know what you would do." Lance sighed.

"You both urged me to stay and fight but I scattered the lions because it's what I believed was best to keep the universe safe."

"I see. I.. I think I understand."

"No, my daughter. You and your brother were right. I made a terrible mistake. One that has cost the universe countless lives. Forming Voltron is the only way to stop Zarkon. You must assemble the lions and correct my error." And with that the image of their father faded and after a moment the the Alteans returned to the paladins.

"I have come to my decision." The other paladins gathered around the princess as she spoke. "You four paladins were brought here for a reason. The lions of Voltron were meant to be piloted by you, and you alone. Zarkon must be stopped and Voltron is the only hope the universe has at stopping him. We are the Universe’s only hope."

"We're right with you, Princess." Shiro assured.

"Good." She nodded. "Your suits of armor, then."

"Oh cool!" Hunk cried. 

Pidge bounced on the balls of her feet and Keith made a small noise of approval.

"Next is your bayard, the traditional weapon of the paladins, taking a distinct shape for each paladin." Allura explained as she distributed the weapons, each taking form in the hands of the respective owners. 

Hunk's forming a large and heavy looking blaster, Keith's becoming a well balanced sword, and Pidge's changing into a small dagger-like arrow point.

"What's your bayard, Lance?" Hunk asked.

Lance grinned and detached his bayard from his suit, shifting his hold as it turned into a blue rifle. "The coolest of them all" he replied cheekily. 

"Shiro, I'm afraid your bayard was lost with its paladin" Allura frowned.

"I'll just make due." 

Once everyone was properly suited up and accustomed to their weapons Allura gave the paladins a run down of the plan. 

"You'll need to retrieve the Blue lion from Sendak's ship."

"Did the Galra's ships get bigger in the past 10000 years?" Lance half joked.

"Its huge," Pidge agreed. "How is Lance gonna find the Blue lion?"

"I've known blue since before you were born. Finding her will be a breeze!" Lance said confidently.

Keith rolled his eyes.

"I saw that Keith! Don't roll your eyes at me, respect your elders and all that!" Lance pouted.

"You can't be that much older than me."

"16 years plus 10,000. Wanna go, mullet man?"

"You're only 16?!" Hunk yelped.

"Plus ten thousand." Lance put his hands on his hips.

"But you're just a kid! _I'm_ 16!"

"Hey, I resent that!"

"Lance, enough." Allura cut in, sighing at her brother's antics. "Shiro, please explain the plan."

"Of course. The Galra only know that we have the Yellow and Red lions. Keith and Hunk will distract Sendak by pretending to surrender the lions. While Sendak is busy Pidge, you'll sneak me and Lance onto the ship in the Green lion. Lance and I will find the Blue lion while Pidge guards our exit. Hunk and Keith, once we're in find some way to destroy that ion canon." Shiro paused to took around the group. "Everyone got that?" 

There was a chorus of 'Yes sir's from the paladins.

\-----------------------------

The plan started off smoothly.

Keith and Hunk flew up to the approaching Galra ship, feigning surrender. Pidge was able to sneak Lance, Shiro, and herself onto the ship. 

Things went less smoothly once the tractor beam was engaged.

"Uh, what's that thing?" Hunk began to panic.

"Not good, that's for sure. Move, Hunk!" Keith warned as he and Hunk pulled away from their pretend surrender, managing to avoid being pulled in. 

Of course, such behavior isn't typical of someone surrendering, and the two were shortly joined by a wave of smaller attack ships.

"Keith, if you think you can distract those fighters, I can try and dismantle the ion canon."

"Got it. Those three had better be quick." Keith frowned.

Keith and Hunks distraction lasted just long enought to allow Pidge to slip the Green lion on without detection. Moments after exiting the Green lion, Shiro stumbled, groaning painfully.

"I've been here before." He realized. "After I was taken by the Galra cruiser off Kerberos, they brought us here."

Pidge's eyes widened. "So, that means your other crewmembers, they might be held captive here. We... We've got to rescue them." 

"Pidge, we don't have time. We have to get the Blue Lion and get back to Arus."

"But we can't just leave prisoners here!"

"Look, no one understands that more than me, but, in war, we have to make hard choices. Now, let's get moving."

"No!" Pidge was shouting now. "Commander Holt is my father. He and my brother were the ones on the Kerberos Mission with you."

Shiro stopped in his tracks. "Commander Holt is your father?"

"Yes. I've been searching everywhere for him and my brother. And I'm not going to give up looking when I'm this close. I won't!"

"I'm coming with you." Shiro decided.

"What?!" Lance was taken aback, this wasn't the plan.

"I remember where the prisoners are held. Lance, go find the Blue lion."

"Wha- by myself?" Splitting up, in Lance's humble opinion, was never a good idea.

"Minor change of plans. You can do it. Patience yields focus, remember that." Shiro patted Lance's arm.

"You humans are so weird."

Nearby, a door opened.

"With that in mind, run!" 

And Lance did, for quite a while before remembering he had no idea where he was or where Blue was.

"Quiznak. Okay, you got this Lance. Focus on Blue. Find Blue." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, searching for the familiar feeling of the Blue Lion's presence.

"Gotcha." Maybe Shiro was onto something with that patience thing.

Lance sprinted off in the direction of his lion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im so happy that you guys seem to like this fic! I never expected so many people to enjoy what I write!  
> As much as I love the kudos (I really do, it makes my day) comments are even better! They let me know that you want me to continue, and give me feedback on what I'm doing well or not so well.  
> Anyway, thanks so much for reading! Have a great day!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance knows what he's doing.  
> The others do not. Pls listen to the blue boy, he's trying.  
> Shiro is confused by aliens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1,000 hits??? this was just supposed to be a self indulgent bloop! I can't tell you all how happy I am that you're enjoying the fic!  
> Also season 2 is out I'm gonna jump off a bridge.  
> Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Lance wouldn't say he got lost, per se, he was just.. not where he wanted or was supposed to be. Okay he might be a little lost. While he had pretty much locked onto Blue's energy, he still wasn't familiar with the Galra ship's long hallways and having to hide every time a door opened near him didn't help his sense of direction. So while Lance may have been lost, it wasn't entirely his fault.

There was definitely a pattern to the rounds the Galran droids took. Lance had been figuring it out, mostly by trial and error. Okay some trial and a lot of error. He just hoped no one went looking in shaded corners or the several broken droids he had to take out would be found.

Lance was starting to wish he'd had the idea to ask Pidge for a map. Getting a little disoriented was fine, but 15 wrong turns really ate away at the building excitement of being on a mission again.

10 minutes later, after yet another dead end, the Blue paladin finally came to a halt infront of an even larger set of doors than any before. He could also practically hear Blue purring, this was it. As the doors opened Lance found himself embarrassed for the Galra. In all honestly, if they wanted to keep the Blue lion on their ship, they probably should've done a better job at hiding it, because as soon as Lance walked into what appeared to be a hangar there it was. And then Lance was running, any Galra guards be damned. He had found his lion and he was gonna celebrate, dammit.

"Blue!" He yelled. The Lion's forcefield fell as soon as Lance was in reach and he crashed-hugged one of Blue's giant metal paws.

The moment was ruined when some droids finally took notice of the intintruder present and opened fire.

"Boy, did I miss you, girl. Let's get out of here!"

Lance jumped into his lion as it bent down, meeting him halfway. Sliding into the pilot seat Lance sighed. "It really is good to be back." 

\--------------------------------

Pidge held out an arm, signaling for Shiro to stop behind her. They had found a small survelance drone a few hallways ago and Pidge had reprogrammed it to work for them. She named it Rover.

"According to them map I got from Rover, the prisoner cells should be right about... here."

There was a swelling moment of hope in the seconds before Rover unlocked the doors, revealing a room of various aliens all in the tattered prisoner robes Pidge remembered finding Shiro in.

"Dad?" Pidge called out.

Pidge's face visibly fell when neither Matt or her father appeared in the mass of huddled bodies, and while Shiro's face remained neutral, his shoulders slumped slightly. 

"Don't be afraid," Shiro soothed the obviously anxious prisoners "We're her to help you escape."

One of the prisoners, an alien with several pairs of arms spoke up. "It's you.. it's you, the Champion." They turned to address the other prisoners "If anyone can get us out of here, he can."

Shiro startled "Wh.. what did you call me?"

"We don't have much time. Shiro, let's get them to the escape pods." Pidge shifted her weight from foot to foot.

Shiro blinked hard before straightening. "Let's go. Come on!" He and Pidge ushered the prisoners out of the cell and down the hall.

They got a few corridors down before running into trouble. 

"Halt!" A drone stood infront of them, blocking their path.

Pidge gasped and Shiro's vision became blurry, his thoughts fogging over.

Faintly he could hear Pidge beside him, "Shiro? Shiro, what's wrong?"

His prosthetic started glowing purple and Pidge's eyes widened.

Before anyone knew it Shiro had swung his arm and the drone thudded to the ground.

"Thank you, Shiro." A prisoner nodded to the paladin as the rest rushed past.

"Wait! How do you..?" Shiro was cut off my Pidge's enthusiasm.

"Shiro that was amazing! Where did you learn to fight like that?" Pidge had an excited glimmer in her eyes.

"No idea." He half laughed.

\------------------------

"Just break you stupid thing!" Hunk exclaimed, slamming the body of the yellow lion into the side of the Galra ship's ion canon once again. After a few more hits the thing finally caved a bit. "Woo! Score one for Hunk!"

Hunk's attention quick shifted as he noticed the green and blue lions flying towards him.

"You guys made it!"

Pidge crackled through the comms. "You bet we did!"

"Then let's get the heck out of here." Keith advised.

"I hope I stopped the ion canon, I could barely make a dent in it." Hunk worried.

A few minutes later the four lions were stood outside the giant doors sealing away the black lion. The doors swung open and the black lion stood, letting out a roar that the other four lions joined.

Coran started cheering, his celebration quickly cut of by the sound of alarms blaring.

"Huh?" Allura turned from the lions to see what the matter was.

"Oh quiznak!" Coran tugged at his moustache.

The seven rushed back to the control room where Allura checked the systems.

"Sendak is entering the Arusian atmosphere. We need Voltron now!"

Within moments the team was in their lions, watching the Galran ship descend as they tried to figure out a plan.

The the ion canon started glowing. The shot hit the castle's barrier before anyone could move.

"Man, those Galra guys repair things fast." Hunk sighed.

Coran came through on the comms, "The barrier weakens with every blast. Once the shields go down, we'll be defenseless!"

Allura came in after a moment "I can give you some cover with the castle's defenses for a while, but you'll need to form Voltron or we'll be destroyed!"

"Just like old times." Lance laughed without humor.

"Listen up, Team Voltron! The only way to succeed is to give it all you've got! This looks bad, but we can do this! Are you with me?" Shiro prompted.

The rest of the team nodded, but remained silent.

".. I'm nodding. Is everyone else nodding?" Hunk asked.

"Yes, Hunk." Keith, Lance, and Pidge all said in unison.

"Let's do this!" Shiro declared.

"Um.. how?" Pidge asked.

".. good point. How do we for Voltron?" 

"I don't see a 'combine into giant robot' button anywhere on my dashboard."

"This is insane, how are we supposed to know how to do this?" Pidge yelled.

"Combine!" Hunk shouted as he slammed his lion into Keith's.

"Hunk, what the heck?" Keith groaned. 

"Sorry, I guess that won't work."

"Lance, you were a paladin before any of this. You know how this works, right?" Keith pointed out.

"Well, yeah. It's all about connecting with the other paladins and your lion until you become one. But just knowing how it works isn't enough! We have to work as one unit." Lance replied.

"Quickly, Paladins! Our power levels are running low!" Allura updated them.

"Maybe if we fly in formation it'll be enough to combine." Shiro suggested.

There was a chorus of agreement from the other paladins. 

"Guys, wait.. thats not how-" Lance tried to tell the other that that wasn't how this worked.

"Take off on my cue. One, two, three, form Voltron!" Shiro shouted. Nothing happened.

Shiro pointed this out.

"Hey, hey, wait. I feel something!" Hunk said. "Like we're being pulled in the same direction!"

"Me too." Keith added.

"Um, I think I know why." Shiro sighed. "Look up." 

"What the cheese?!" Lance yelped. All five paladins had been trapped in the ship's tractor beam.

"Uh oh."

"Sendak's ship is sucking us in like a black hole!" Pidge said frantically.

"I don't care what you said before Shiro I'm panicking now!" Hunk cried.

"It can't end here!" Pidge cried.

"Its been an honor flying with you boys" Keith said.

"If you just listened-" Lance tried explaining again.

"We can do this. We have to believe in ourselves. We can't give up. We are the universe's only hope. Everyone is relying on us. We can't fail! We won't fail! If we work together, we'll win together!" Shiro rallied.

"Yeah!" The other paladins cheered in agreement.

All five lions roared at once. The sky lit up with bright white light, making Coran and Allura gasp as they watched from the castle.

After a five fucking hour transformation the paladins gasped.

"I can't believe we did it." Keith breathed.

"We formed Voltron!" Pidge shouted into the comms.

Hunk yelled giddily "I'm a leg!"

"Told ya we could do it." Lance smirked.

"Let's get that canon!" Shiro directed their attention back to the task at hand.

One quick giant robot motion later and the ion canon exploded.

"Wooo!"

"Good work, paladins!" Allura praised.

"Thanks, sis" Lance beamed.

"How did we do it, though?" Shiro asked.

"I tried telling you, the five of us and our lions have to work and think together as one unit. It's all about bonding, man. We all had one goal, take out that ship before we die." Lance crossed his arms and pouted. "If you had listened it would've been a lot easier."

Shiro rested a hand on Lance's shoulder. "You're right, Lance. We should have listened to you better. I'm sorry we didn't. You know more about Voltron than any of us." 

"Thanks, Shiro." Lance let his arms uncross and fall to his sides.

\--------------------------

The paladins were in the control room again and Allura stood, Lance at her side, a dressing the others. "We won the battle, but the war has only just begun. I'm afraid Zarkon will not stop until he gets these lions."

Coran nodded "Good thing you paladins know what you're doing, because you're going to have to form Voltron again and again."

"Totally." Hunk agreed before faltering. "Wait, what?" 

"We barely survived forming Voltron this one time." Pidge's eyes had blown wide.

"And you only had to fight one ship." Coran helpfully pointed out. "Wait until you have to fight a whole fleet of them! It's not going to be easy being the Defenders of the Universe."

"Defenders of the Universe, huh?" Shiro toyed with the title. "That's got a nice ring to it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided that major plot points in the canon will be in the fic but after the first episode's script (this chapter) I won't be following episode plots much.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura is Ready To Go  
> The Paladins just want sleep  
> Lance is home sick and, surprisingly, so is Keith.  
> B O N D I N G M O M E N T ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry this is so late! I kept forgetting to edit and post this chapter! The next one will be up soon, though.

Allura had the paladins up bright and early on the training deck.

"We must train vigorously if we are to be strong enough to fight Zarkon." The princess explained.

"Allura, it's like the middle of the night." Hunk complained.

"Actually, it's already morning," Chirped Coran. "Arus's rotation is different than Earth’s, of course!"

"Time is an illusion, Coran, and I need at least three more illusionary hours before I will consider doing anything other than sleep." Pidge grumbled.

"Yeah," Hunk agreed. "You just woke up from a ten thousand year nap, but we haven't slept in at least.." he murmured calculating the time on his fingers. "36 hours." He decided.

"Fine," the princess sighed. "Where's Lance, he should be rested enough to spar."

They all looked around to see that Lance was missing. 

"Is he still asleep?" Keith wondered aloud.

"I'll check." Allura said. A few minutes later she came back, dragging her brother behind her. 

"C'mon Allura! Forming Voltron is hard, can't we sleep in?" He complained.

The princess groaned. "The rest of you may get a few more hours sleep, while my slacker brother and I warm up."

Pidge stifled a laugh.

"Hey! This isn't funny I'm being deprived my beauty sleep!"

Shiro shushed Pidge and herded the rest of the paladins back towards their sleeping quarters but Lance swore he heard the black paladin hold back his own chuckle at Lance's position.

\-----------------------

Some time later everyone was officially up and had been dragged to the training deck.

"I can't believe how big this castle is," Hunk said. "The training deck is huge and I saw at least ten rooms that I have no idea what's in them."

"Honestly, we need maps to get around this place." Pidge added.

Allura cleared her throat loudly. "Okay paladins, enough chatter! We'll never defeat Zarkon if you don't take training seriously!" She clapped her hands together. "Forming Voltron is all about your bond with both your fellow paladins and your lions. For right now we'll be focusing on your bonds with each other!"

"You're not talking about braiding each other's hair are you?" Pidge eyed the princess wearily.

"Well-" the princess was cut off by her brother.

"Yes and no." Lance explained. "Yes, some parts will be personal sharing and hair braiding -don't make that face your hair was made to be braided, Pidge, you too, Keith, that mullet must be saved- but the rest of it is forming trust and skills in battle." Lance grinned cheekily "Which means I get to watch you all get your asses whooped by gladiator bots."

"You have to participate, too, Lance." Allura smirked. 

"What?! But I'm already trained!" Lance complained.

"We've been out of commission for ten thousand years, you are rusty!"

Keith snorted with laughter.

"What, mullet?" Lance squawked "I could kick your ass any day!"

"Im sure you could, Lance." Keith drawled, though part of him knew Lance was probably right.

Lance continued to protest but Allura ignored him. "We'll start with your bayard and half a dozen bots, yes? Coran and I will be in the observation room just there." She pointed to the huge glass windows on one side of the room where Coran waved down at them.

"Start simulation!" The princess yelled and the paladins barely had time to activate their weapons before they were assaulted by three gladiator bots dropping from the ceiling.

Lance jumped into action, dodging and firing at one of the bots. A fourth bot dropped down and charged at Lance. Keith caught the movement from the corner of his eye and his warning to the prince was lost in his throat as Pidge's small body was launched into his side.

Lance spotted the approach, however, and quickly swung an elbow into the first bot's face, knocking it back before slamming the butt of his rifle into the second's chest. Then he took a step back and fired twice, hitting them square in the chest and the bots digitalized.

Keith was surprised when he noticed that Lance's rifle had become shorter and more compact, much better for close combat than his normal weapon, but Keith still wasn't sure how Lance had changed the shape of his bayard.

It took Keith a moment to realize that he was still lying on the ground, another to realize Pidge had already gotten up, and a third to notice Lance's hand stretched towards him, an offer. Keith accepted and Lance pulled him up with surprising ease.

"C'mon," He grinned, "I think Hunk needs a hand." The poor guy was indeed struggling to fend off a bot with his canon-like bayard, which was even less equiped for close range than Lance's normal rifle. And then Lance was off, running towards the yellow paladin. Keith made to follow but the fifth gladiator fell infront of him, cutting him off.

This time Keith was ready and swung his own bayard to meet the gladiator's, metal clanging loudly. Keith side stepped slightly and pulled his blade away suddenly, using the bot's slight stumble to his advantage he swung again at its chest. The bot tried to parry but Keith's blade still made a deep scratch in it's metal side.

Keith would have successfully taken down the single bot if another hadn't snuck from behind and hit him hard enough to launch him some six feet away straight into Hunk, who was struggling to fend off two more bots with Lance.

Lance made a surprised noise before he too was slammed across the floor.

"End simulation!" He heard the princess shout, and the remaining bots froze and disapeared. 

Keith looked around and noticed Shiro and Pidge in a similar pile a few yards away.

"I understand that this is your first time training with your weapons, except for you Lance, but that was pitiful!" The princess cried. "Those bots were set to a level fit for an altean child! And six should be only a small challenge for the five of you!"

"Allura, calm down, we're not used to working as a team yet." Lance reached out his hands in a calming gesture. "I don't think all of us have ever even sparred like this before." He eyed Hunk and Pidge who blushed and shrugged respectively.

The princess inhaled deeply. "You're right, Lance. I'm sorry, paladins, perhaps I was a bit overzealous in my expectations. You did well for your first time working as a team, feel free to relax or continue training for the rest of the day." She sighed. "We'll pick up again tomorrow with trust building exercises."

"Good idea, sis," Lance patted her shoulder gently. "Why don't you take a break, too?"

"I'm fine. If anyone needs me I will be in the control room." She said before quickly making her way out the door.

\---------------------------

Lance was sitting outside in the soft Arusian grass thinking about Altea. He missed his home. The pink sunset had faded into a red tinted purple and Lance had relaxed into a lying position when he heard the rustle of another person.

Expecting Allura, Lance let out a sigh. "I miss Altea, sis."

"Well, I've never seen Altea and I'm definitely not your sister, but I get what you mean. Kind of." The voice shot Lance up from his easy lounge.

"Keith!" He shreiked, "I, uh, I thought you were Allura.." 

"I can tell. Is that why you've been gone all day? You miss your home?" Keith dropped to sit next to Lance.

"Yeah, so what I'm homesick? I'm still a better paladin than you." Lance huffed.

Keith's eyes narrowed. "I never said there was anything wrong with you missing Altea, and I never thought I was a better paladin." The last part came out as more of a question.

"Sorry. Tired and defensive, I guess."

"Its alright." Keith assured. "What was Altea like?"

"It was beautiful. I miss the ocean. It was so blue." He sighed.

"The ocean back on Earth is blue, too." Keith said. "I don't live near the beach but I visited it when I was little."

"My father used to take me and Allura to the beach when we were small, too. Coran would always tell us stories about the Tumire. It was this legendary monster that lived in the water. He swears he saw it once." Lance smiled at the memory.

"There's a monster legend on Earth kind of like that."

"Really? Tell me more."

"There's this lake in Scottland, which is this place on Earth, called Loch Ness and a giant monster lives in it. She's called the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie."

"Is she real?" Lance looked eager.

"I think she is. So does Pidge, but some people on Earth think she's a myth. Most cryptids on Earth are thought of that way by most people."

"If we have a chance to visit Earth, we should look for Nessie."

"That would certainly make for an interesting trip." Keith gave a wry grin.

"I wish I could visit Altea. Even just once more." Lance's head hung with grief. "Do you miss Earth?"

Keith thought for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, I do. I'm a little surprised by it, I don't have anything for me on Earth. I was an orphan and lived in a shack in the desert alone."

"You lived in a shack?" Lance's eyebrow raised slightly, his voice tinged with disbelief.

"Yup." The eyebrow grew higher.

"In the desert."

"Yes?" Keith wasn't sure what was going on and leaned back from the questioning prince slightly.

"Why?" Lance asked and Keith wondered vaguely how high Lance's eyebrows could climb before they left his forhead.

He shrugged. "I got kicked out of school after Shiro went missing." They had explained most of Shiro's situation shortly after their first fight.

Lance's face split into a grin and suddenly the air was filled with the prince's howling laughter.

"What's so funny about that?" Keith flushed with embarrassment.

In-between bouts of laughter Lance managed an answer. "You lived... in the quiznaking desert.. alone!" His slim body shook with joy. "And then," he giggled madly "Shiro smashes into the planet.. on some alien ship! And you're dragged out of your little hermit hole.. across space.. to fly robot cats.. and protect the universe!" 

After a moment, Keith joined in Lance's laughter. It was absurd! Only yesterday (was it yesterday? Time was difficult in space and human perception of it was a made up concept so what did it matter) had been working on figuring out the secrets to the strange lion carvings and living in the desert, but now here he was talking about cryptids with an alien prince after fighting off evil purple aliens with a robot cat!

"Oh my god," Keith chuckled. "You're right!"

The two laughed a few minutes longer while the Arusian sun sank below the horizon. 

"You're not so bad, Keith." Lance said after they had calmed down.

"I guess you're not so bad, either."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to check out my tumblr! (http://thecornerwitch.tumblr.com/)  
> As always, kudos and comments are infinitely appreciated! I try to respond to everyone and my ask box on tumblr is always open, too.  
> Have a great day, and thanks for reading! :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think i'm gonna keep this a domestic kind of think so the gang will go on small missions and diplomatic visits as well as hanging out at the castle but not as many crazy fight scenes. My children need rest.

Humans were funny, Lance thought. Hunk, Pidge, Keith, and Shiro had been on the ship for about a week and already they seemed to have developed a strong attachment not only to Lance, Allura, and Coran, but to the Arusians.

Lance had been joking when he suggested knitting a sweater for Klaizap, but Hunk had somehow gotten some yarn from the Arusians and now he and Lance were halfway done making a soft yellow sweater for the little guy. Pidge liked them well enough but claimed that they scared Rover and kept her distance while they celebrated Voltron's victory against a robot beast of Zarkon's. Shiro seemed a bit timid but smiled kindly at them often like Pidge avoiding the crowds.

Even Keith, as edgy as he acted, had taken a liking to the small aliens. Sometimes Lance would wander out to the village and find Keith deep in conversation with one or two Arusians.

Hunk had already adopted Lance as his new best friend it seemed, and Lance had no qualms about it. The guy was like a hug personified! Sure he's a bit nosey and maybe he pushed a few buttons now and then but he meant well and Lance appreciated the comfort.

He and Keith were pleasant with each other while still keeping up the silly banter but it hadn't really progressed past that and Lance did his best to pretend he wasn't bothered by the other's seeming disinterest in friendship. Lance wondered if maybe Keith just didn't like him. The thought made him sad. Keith was just so _cool,_ it was hard not to want him to like you.

Lance was a fantastic shot and he knew it, but Keith kicked his ass in hand to hand despite Lance's years of training. He was a little miffed at being one-upped but even more he was in awe at how damn good the kid was at fighting. And a little relieved that Keith was on their side.

He's your fellow paladin, Lance thought to himself, it makes sense to want to be friends, right? Yeah, bonding and all that stuff Allura loved to spout about.

"Hey, Hunk?" Lance was sitting on the counter while his new friend mixed different Arusian produce in a bowl. 

"Yeah, buddy?" Hunk looked up from his dish to give Lance his full attention. Lance scratched his neck nervously.

"Do you think Keith hates me?" He asked.

"What? No! Why would he hate you, you said you guys had a bonding moment or whatever the other day, right? Keith can be awkward and blunt but I'm sure he's just intimidated by you." Hunk reasoned.

"Intimidated? Keith is so much cooler than me why would he be intimidated?" Lance countered.

"Keith is a big ol' nerd once you get to know him. And Lance you're so cool! You're an alien prince and the blue paladin, not to mention a great sharpshooter. You're way cooler than any of us humans."

Lance blushed. "Aw shucks,"

Hunk smiled. "Just talk to him and tell him you want to be friends."

"I'll think about it. Thanks, Hunk."

"How did you and Keith become friends, anyway? You seem like such opposites." Lance asked.

Hunk laughed, "We used to be crew mates at the galaxy garrison before he dropped out. Pidge had known him because her brother, Matt, was best friends and crew mates with Shiro. So when Keith ended up our pilot they were thrilled. Those two are really close. You should've seen Pidge when we found Keith again after he disapeared, she were furious." 

Lance tilted his head. "What does Shiro knowing Pidge's brother have to do with Keith?"

"They're brothers, man." Hunk told him like it was obvious.

"WHAT?!" Lance shot off the counter. "Are you serious? Keith said we was an orphan though?"

Hunk nodded. "You'll have to ask him for the details but he was adopted by Shiro's family but a couple years before Shiro went on the Kerberos mission they died in a car accident."

"What's a car?"

"Its like the hover bike things the lions have but with wheels. Except not like that."

"Wow, that really helps, Hunk." Lance deadpanned. 

He shrugged. "I could tell you how it works but I don't even know if altean even has words that translate for all the components." A timer dinged and Hunk pulled a tray of disks out of the oven.

"What is that?" Lance reached out to touch one and Hunk slapped his hand away.

"They're still hot, be patient. I tried to recreate this food we have on earth called cookies. They're this sweet baked dessert that brings joy to all."

"Are they supposed to be red?" 

"Erm.. not necessarily but I had to substitute earth ingredients. It's not gonna be exactly the same. Go ahead, try one."

Lance picked up a cookie. It was warm and soft. He tentatively bit into it. Lance was silent as he chewed and Hunk held his breath.

"Dude..." Lance looked at his friend, his expression serious. 

"Yes?" Hunk breathed.

"Earth is amazing, this cookie thing is amazing, you are amazing!" Lance broke into a grin after shoveling the rest of the cookie into his mouth so crumbs fell everywhere and made a mess. 

"Eww, Lance." Hunk laughed and hugged his friend. "We have to show these to Pidge and Keith." He eyed his friend wearily. "I don't know if I trust you not to eat the cookies if I send you with them to find them." 

Lance gasped and clasped his hands to his chest in faux betrayal. "Hunk! Buddy, My man, my one and only! How could you think such a thing of me?! I mean you're definitely right in assuming that but I'm hurt!" He draped himself over Hunk's back.

Hunk rolled his eyes at the dramatics and gently pushed the altean off of him. "Just go find them and bring them here."

"You got it!" Lance flourished a bow and danced out of the room wearing a goofy grin. 

Pidge was almost definitely in the hangar working on some science thing and there was a good chance Keith was on the training deck which was conveniently on the way to Pidge.

Lance hummed while he walked. "Keeeeiiith!" He called as he sauntered onto the training deck. 

Keith gave a quick shout to turn off the simulation and turned towards the prince.

"Hey," Keith greeted and Lance swore he saw the corners of his mouth curl in a small smile.

"'Sup Keithy-boy. Hunk made some earth food called cookies and he wants you to try them."

"Heck yes" He smiled for real now and made to leave.

"You wanna help me get Pidge out of her gremlin cave?" Lance asked.

"Sure, why not?" 

Lance's smile grew, maybe Hunk was right, Keith was just awkward. "Does all earth food taste as awesome as cookies?"

"Nah, not all of it. For example: meatloaf is terrible in my opinion. Pidge's brother loves it, though. I'm sure you had foods you didn't like on Altea, too." 

"Oh definitely, but Allura was always the picky one when we were kids. Still is, actually." Lance said.

"Really, Allura? But she seems so put together."

"Oh sure, she'll act like she loves it on diplomatic missions or if she thinks it'll hurt someone's feelings but otherwise if she doesn't like it she either complains or straight up refuses to eat it."

Keith looked astonished. "No way." 

"It's true." Lance chuckled at Keith's reaction. "Its easy to forget when she's being all regal but she's only two years older than me." 

"Are you serious? You guys are so young!" 

"I guess." Lance replied watching the hangar doors open. 

"Yo Pidgeon!" He turned to Keith and whispered conspiratorially, "Hunk told me a pigeon is a kind of small earth bird. I thought it fit Pidge nicely." Keith snorted.

"Pidge are you here?" Lance called out again.

A second later they heard a muffled reply from the wall where all of Pidge's work was shoved. "I'm over here!" She shouted.

Lance and Keith looked at each other and shrugged.

"What are you up to, Pidgerino?" Lance asked. Pidge was half swallowed in the belly of some machinery with wires exploded everywhere.

The green paladin pulled themselves out to glare at Lance. "Pidgerino? You can do better than that. Hey, Keith. What do you want?"

"Hunk made cookies, you want in?" Keith asked.

Pidge gasped. "He finally did it?" The boys nodded.

Pidge raced past Lance and Keith who cased after yelling.

"You have to share, Pidge!" 

"Wait for us!"

They skidded into the kitchen after Pidge who was already munching happily.

"Hunk you beautiful genius!" Pidge praised. "These are almost perfect!"

Hunk blushed. "Oh stop it, you."

"I like the color." Keith added.

Lance snorted "'Course you do, Keith." Pidge giggled.

Keith looked confused. "What do you mean?" 

"You're the red paladin." Hunk explained.

"I don't get it.." Keith mumbled. "Its not bad is it?"

Lance slung an arm over Keith's shoulders. "No at all, Keithy-boy. You're just predictable is all."

Keith frowned. "Whatever."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, season three was fucking wild, man. Also someone please teach Shiro how to cut his hair it's so ugly jfc
> 
> Sorry this is so late, ao3 decided to eat the first draft of this chapter so I had to start over.

It was late. Lance didn't know how late but it was late enough that even Pidge was asleep. 

He only knew that because Pidge had stopped by the training deck on her way to bed a few hours ago and told him to "go to sleep goddammit."

That had been the routine for the past week or so. Lance would leave his room after everyone but Pidge headed to bed to train. Normally he went to bed a little after Pidge yelled at him, but not tonight.

Lance had been quite literally blown up the last time the Galra attacked. Sure it had been a surprise attack and it really wasn't fair that the bomb looked like Rover, but he had been out of commission the entire time. He had been useless. Shiro wouldn't say it because he was too polite for that but Lance knew Shiro wouldn't have lost the fight with Sendak if he hadn't been such a liability. 

It had taken three days in a healing pod for him to recover. Three days where the team couldn't form Voltron because of him. Sure he'd been smothered in attention from everyone, especially his sister and Hunk when he got out, but it didn't stop Lance from feeling sick with the guilt of holding back the team.

So here he was, on the training deck, in the middle of the night, fighting gladiator bots with everything he had and no intention of heading to bed. He wasn't going to let himself be a liability any more.

He lifted his arms high in a stretch. He was using the terrain simulator, which meant there was cover for him and corners for bots to hide behind and surprise him.

"Gimme ten level eight bots." Lance watched them fall from the ceiling and disapeared behind the fake walls.

Lance summoned his bayard into two close range pistols and charged across the room. He moved fluidly, dodging and slipping behind enemies with practiced ease. 

Minutes later all the bots had been taken out and the terrain lowered. Lance panted and leaned onto his knees. He was exhausted and beaten up, but he couldn't stop yet. He wasn't good enough yet.

Lance stumbled to his pile of stuff shoved against the wall and flopped down to drink a juice pouch. 

The door hissed open and Lance squeezed his juice into his face in surprise.

"Keith! Woah, warn a guy, would ya?" He sputtered wiping off his face with his sweat towel which was disgusting but so was being covered in space juice and sweat.

"Lance? How long have you been up? It's like 5 am." Keith gave Lance his signature confused head tilt and quiznak was it adorable.

Wait a second hold on, Lance mentally put the breaks on his train of thought. Adorable? Keith?! When did Keith become adorable? Okay, okay calm down. This was fine. Lance thought all his friends were adorable, in a completely platonic way of course. Hunk was probably the most adorable person Lance had ever met, besides himself of course. Pidge was a no brainer, she was so cute and little, Lance couldn't help but want to adopt her as his new little sister. This was the same thing right? Definitely. That or he really needed to sleep more.

"Have you eaten breakfast yet? You shouldn't train without eating." Keith sounded concerned.

Lance shook himself from his thoughts. "Wha?" Oh no he had been staring hadn't he.

"You didn't did you? Lance you need to eat, and you especially shouldn't be skipping meals to train!" Keith had his hands on his hips and was frowning at him now.

"I didn't skip any meals! I didn't even know it was morning yet, I didn't go to bed last night." Lance tried to wave off Keith's scolding.

"What? You didn't sleep at all? Why not?" Keith looked concerned again.

"Its not important. I'll go eat since you you're so insistant about it, though."

"Lance, come on, I know you haven't been sleeping much. Pidge told us that she sees you more often than not still in here when she heads to bed." He was sitting infront of Lance now. He looked so worried it made Lance feel guilty.

"Why do you even care?" He mumbled.

Keith looked taken aback. "I though.. we.. we're friends now aren't we?"

"Yeah, we are. Sorry." Lance gave him a small smile.

"Then as your friend I'm telling you that I'm worried about you.... Because we're friends and stuff." Keith was possibly the most awkward human being Lance had ever met. Granted he only knew 4 humans. 

He clapped his friend on the back, causing him to startle. "Thanks for the concern, man. But I'm fine. Promise." He grinned and flexed. "Just working on being able to kick your ass in training" he lied.

Keith looked sceptical but eventually conceded. "If you say so. Let's go get you some food." 

\--------------------

Lance was lying to him and Keith knew it. 

He was a surprisingly talented liar, but Keith was very good at knowing when he was being lied to. It came hand in hand with not entirely trusting most people. He just couldn't figure out why. 

Why would Lance lie to him about his sleeping habits? It's not like it was hard to tell he wasn't sleeping enough. The bags under his eyes were pretty noticable, even if he did use makeup to hide them (something he learned from Hunk and Pidge gossiping near him). And that morning, without makeup to conceal it, Keith could have made out the dark bruising from a mile away.

Keith couldn't think of anything he could do to help his friend. So he did the next best thing: he told his sister.

"He's been doing what?!" Allura screeched.

"Um.." Keith might have made a mistake in telling Allura. He thought she would deal with it quietly, not do... whatever this was.

"For over a week?!" Allura was pacing angrily now and Keith was considering running away.

Suddenly she turned on him and before he could scramble away she had a grip on his shoulder.

"Thank you, Keith, for telling me. I knew he wasn't sleeping well but I had no idea how little sleep he has been getting. And training all night on too of that!" She sighed deeply. "He doesn't take care of himself, does he?" She asked more to herself than to Keith.

"I wasn't sure if I should, but then he lied to me about being okay.. and I thought you should know."

"That little-" She took a deep breath. "I'll talk to him. Oh and, don't worry too much if Lance gets a little upset that you told me. It's me he's mad at for making him take care of himself. He'll get over it fast." She gave him a warm smile that he tried his best to return.

\-------------------

"LANCE!" Allura stormed through her brother's bedroom door.

"Ahh!" Lance flung the book he had been reading across the room in surprise. "Allura what the hell? You scared the quiznak out of me!"

"Lance you are in big trouble, mister!" Allura pursed her lips and glared at her younger brother.

"What are you doing? You look constipated." Lance laughed nervously.

"Keith told me you haven't been sleeping!" 

"What?! He told on me! That mullet headed bastard!" Lance looked immensely offended.

"Not only that, he told me that instead of sleeping you've been training all night!"

"Im gonna kill him." Lance made to leave but Allura blocked the door. 

"No, don't blame Keith, he's only worried about you. Lance this isn't okay! You need your sleep! You need to let your body rest!"

"I'm fine Allura," 

"No you're not, Lance. I can't let you do this to yourself. In fact, for the next month I'm benching you from all physical training exercises. And I'm locking the training room after dinner. I'll be informing everyone else in just a few minutes so don't think you can get someone to sneak you in. I'm not sure what this is about yet but I'm going to figure it out. I love you, Lance, you're my baby brother. I hate when you won't tell me what going on." She pulled him into a fierce hug and made for the door.

"You put me in time out! I'm too old to be put in time out, Allura!" Lance called after her.

Overhead he heard his sister announce to everyone in the castle, "I'm calling a team meeting! Everyone be in the lounge in 5 minutes or I'll strap you down and ask Coran about the history of Scaultrite!"

He flopped back onto his bed and pressed his hands into his eyes. How was he supposed to prevent what happened last time now?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I cant believe Keith Kogane invented denial.  
> Hunk knows whats up.  
> Pidge is a gremlin child and I love her.

True to her word, Allura had everyone gathered in the common room ten minutes later and was informing the team on Lance's new restrictions.

"How are we supposed to train if we don't have Lance with us? That's like, the entirety of the whole team building thing we've got going." Pidge questioned.

"Yeah, Allura! You can't bench me without affecting the rest of the team, too!" Lance whined.

"Actually," the princess smiled, "I thought this would be an excellent time for us to work on your personal bonds!"

"So no more combat training?" Keith tilted his head slightly.

"Not necessarily, while Lance is temporarily banned from combat training due to health concerns, you all are still free to train on your own time. We just won't be doing any team combat training for a little while." Allura explained.

Hunk openly sighed with relief. "Man. It's going to be nice to get a bit of a break."

Shiro nodded. "I think it will be good for all of us to have some non combat training."

The princess smiled. "Then it's settled, starting tomorrow we will be training here in the lounge."

With that Allura stood, ending the meeting. She, Coran, and Shiro left the room discussing the training exercises for the next day. Pidge mumbled something about wanting to upgrade the locking system they were using to keep Lance out of the training deck to work on her stuff.

As they filtered out Hunk and Keith turned to Lance.

"You doing okay, buddy?" Hunk asked.

Lance sighed heavily and slumped dramatically into the couch.

"This suuucks" He complained.

Keith awkwardly patted Lance's shoulder in a way that he figured was supposed to be comforting and Lance could swear he saw Hunk giving Keith a discreet nod of encouragement.

"Um, I'm sorry that I got you in trouble with your sister. I was worried and I just wanted to help. I didn't think she'd ban you from training." Keith apologized sheepishly. "Please don't hate me."

The look on Keith's face made Lance feel incredibly guilty for being so mad at him earlier. 

"Its okay, man." Lance assured. "I was a little upset at first, but I couldn't hate you, were bros! Plus, you were just trying to look out for me and as much as I hate it Allura is probably right that I need a break. If anything I should be thanking you." Lance said, giving Keith a light nudge with his elbow.

Keith gaped for a moment. He looked at Lance. Then at Hunk. Then back to Lance. His ears were burning bright red.

"Um" He responded smartly.

Hunk raised an eyebrow slightly but stayed silent, watching the two interact.

Keith cared his throat "Im- I'm glad that you don't hate me. That would suck. Especially because we couldn't form Voltron if you hated me." 

Lance gave Keith a lopsided smile and stood up. "Well, I'm gonna go find something to eat, you guys want in?"

Keith started to stand, too, but Hunk quickly grabbed his arm and yanked him back down to the couch earning a strange look from both boys.

"Maybe in a minute, I've gotta talk to Keith about something real quick." He said.

"Oookay." Lance shrugged and strolled out the door.

"Hunk, what the hell? What do you need to talk to me about?" Keith questioned.

Hunk looked around the room quickly, making sure they were alone before turning back to Keith.

"You have a crush on him!" Hunk grinned.

"WHAT?!" Keith shouted.

"You" Hunk poked him lightly in the chest. "Have a crush on Lance!"

Keith folded his arms. "I absolutely do not have a.. have.. THAT." 

Hunk grinned even wider. "You totally do! At first I thought it was just you not knowing how to make friends and being flustered around people but you like him!"

Keith was flushing darker and darker by the second.

"Oh my gosh that's so adorable!"

Keith crossed his arms even harder and mumbled something that sounded like "..shut up"

Hunk calmed down slightly and slung an arm around Keith. "Its okay, man. There's nothing wrong with a little crush. Besides, he is pretty cute, isn't he?"

Keith somehow blushed even harder which made Hunk start laughing again.

"Can we just go eat now." Keith pleaded.

"Whatever you want, buddy, but we are absolutely going to talk more about this later."

"I hate you." 

"No you don't!"

\-------------------

Keith felt utterly betrayed. He had gone to Hunk, pure and loving Hunk, one of his oldest and most trusted friends, hoping that he would know how to help Keith fix things with Lance. He had not anticipated Hunk misenterpreting Keith's awkwardness as a crush. On Lance no less.

Keith let out a defeated noise and banged his head against the wall of his bedroom. After Hunk's little intervention Keith had to sit through lunch trying to ignore the winks and knowing looks Hunk would send him every time he so much as breathed within five feet of Lance.

It's not like Keith didn't think Lance was attractive, of course Lance was attractive. But he and Lance were friends and teammates, that was it and if Keith sometimes woke up from dreams featuring impossibly blue eyes that suspiciously resembled those of a certain altean prince well no one needed to know that. The point was, Keith absolutely did not have a crush on Lance and Hunk was misreading the situation entirely.

Keith finally stopped banging his head into the wall and slumped to the floor. Hunk wasn't going to let this go easily and he knew it. 

"Yo, you cool? I was about to come tell you to shut up when you stopped banging on the wall and then I realized you might be hurt so I came over anyway." Pidge barged right into Keith's room.

Keith looked up at her from the floor. "Yeah I'm good."

"Why are you on the floor?"

"Hunk thinks I have a crush on Lance." He explained.

Pidge raised an eyebrow. "And you dont?"

"No! Hunk just thinks I do for some reason."

"'Some reason'?" Pidge questioned.

Keith sighed. "I think he's getting carried away with his excitement about me making new friends."

"It is kind of exciting. You only talked to like three people on Earth. And one of them was your brother."

"And now I talk to like six people."

"Its a big step up, how are you going to balance all these new relationships?" Pidge deadpanned.

"Its actually really easy 'cause I live in space with all of them. I have no choice but to interact with them." 

Pidge cracked a smile that Keith mirrored. "I'm heading back to my cave. Good luck with your boyfriend!" Pidge ran away giggling.

"He's not my boyfriend!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this seems a little OOC for Keith, in this story line he actually knew both Hunk and Pidge for a while before voltron and I feel like he'd be a lot looser and open with them. And I'm just gonna say for this fic, Keith, Shiro, Matt, and Pidge totally all grew up together. Keith and Pidge are bros for life.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for some team bonding!!
> 
> Allura is having way too much fun with this.
> 
> Shiro dreams of a world where his brother knows how to process Emotions™.
> 
> Keith doesn't have a crush on Lance, shut up, Hunk!
> 
> Lance is predictably, oblivious.

Allura was downright giddy. She had been waiting for ages for an excuse to get the whole team together to do some personal bonding. And while a lot of this was for personal reasons of wishing to find some real friendship in the new paladins, the time together really would help Voltron.

As princess, she hadn't exactly had a very open childhood. There really wasn't anyone but her brother and the occasional foreign diplomats' children (who weren't ever much fun). Lance had always been her closest friend, and while she wouldn't trade that for the universe she longed for the kind of camaraderie that she saw between Keith, Hunk, and Pidge.

At first Allura had feared the others would resist the idea, however they had all seemed to latch onto the idea whole heartedly. Lance only made a fuss because he hated being benched from physical training and that was quelled fairly quickly by Hunk's crestfallen look at the thought of Lance not wanting to spend time with his new best friend. Even Keith, who Allura had assumed would be guarded about this sort of thing, seemed willing, if a bit subdued.

In her enthusiasm, Allura had woken extremely early and set up the lounge for the day's activities, much to the chagrin of the mice. She gathered blankets and pillows from various closets around the castle and set them up to create a giant nest in the sunken couch pit. Next she rummaged through the kitchen pantry for ingredients from their last planet-side pit stop. Despite Allura, Lance, and Coran knowing quite a bit about most of the alien produce, Hunk had insisted on experimenting with it on his own (so long as the Alteans pointed out what would be dangerous for humans to consume). He'd done rather well so far with making unique edibles, but much of what was in the pantry was actually snack food. Which was entirely due Lance's.. helpful encouragement on what to bring aboard.

Allura grabbed a few lumpy, pinkish looking fruits (Joupin berries) and brought them over to the counter to slice up before baking. When the fruit chips were done she poured them into a bowl that she brought out to the lounge and set out along with a mountain of space juice packs. Then she collapsed into a particularly large pile of pillows to wait for the other to awaken, the mice curling up to go back to sleep on her stomach.

After a dobash of fidgeting, Allura checked her ticker. She still had at least two vargas before Shiro and Keith woke up, and three for Hunk and Lance. Pidge's arival depended on whether she had slept the night before. Coran would show up at some point, Allura wasn't actually sure if he slept ever. She'd never seen it, and Lance used to theorise that he was actually a robot. Why had she woken up so early again? Oh right friendship bonding time today. She could go back to bed, but someone should be out in the lounge so the mice don't eat the food before anyone else can get any and the pillows were so, so comfy. Maybe she could just close her eyes for a second, she had time.

 

\-------------------

"Princess."

"Augh" Allura said elegantly. She was drooling slightly.

"Princess, wake up. It's time for team bonding." Coran sing songed.

Allura just rolled over and continued to drool.

Lance snickered. "Sis, C'mon get up." Lance poked her side with his foot.

"Hm." Allura swatted at the extended appendage.

Lance stuck his foot in her face. "Wake up!!"

"Ugh, Lance!" Allura scowled in discuss at her brother. "I'm up, see?"

"Did you wake up early to set all this up?" Lance gestured to the room.

"Yeah, I was excited!" Allura defended, crossing her arms.

"No, no its awesome. Oo are those Joupin berry chips?!"

"Yeah, I figured I'd make them since you had Hunk pick them up last time."

"Best sister ever!" Lance shoved a chip in his mouth and cambered over to hug Allura.

Once he relented, Allura looked around to find Coran to be the only other person in the room, smiling fondly at them as he so often did when they were getting along.

"Where is everyone else? If you're up, then everyone must be awake by now." She teased.

"Rude. And they're eating breakfast. You should be proud, I even got Pidge to sleep a whole six vargas last night."

"Impressive, how'd you manage that?"

"Bribery."

"Of course."

"Let's go, breakfast before braids!"

Allura huffed out a laugh, letting herself be pulled along down the hall.

The dining room was full of noise despite there only being four people bustling about.

Keith was conversing animatedly with Shiro, who looked like he might explode from holding in laughter, at one end of the table while Pidge shouted things after Hunk as he darted back and forth between the dining room and kitchen.

Allura smiled. Having everyone together for meals wasn't uncommon, they all ate together as often as they could, but the relaxed domesticity was fairly new.

"Goodmorning everyone!" Allura smiled.

"Morning, Princess! Hunk is making those horrible egg things." She shouted the last part in the direction of the kitchen.

"You're the only one that doesn't like them!" Hunk countered as he shouldered past the door with his arms full of plates. "Food's up!"

Once they had all eaten their fill, the group made their way over to the lounge.

"Woah, it looks like a Mattress Warehouse exploded in here." Pidge observed.

"What's a mattress warehouse?"

"Earth thing" Pidge, Keith, and Hunk all replied simultaneously.

Allura looked over at Lance. He shrugged helplessly.

"But seriously, this place is full of soft things. When did you even have time to do this?" Pidge flopped onto a particularly large pillow.

"Early this morning." Allura blushed.

Lance rolled his eyes. "Yeah, more like so early in the morning that it was still yesterday."

"Eh sleep is fake." Pidge grinned.

"Its really not." Hunk sighed.

"So are we actually doing this mushy bonding thing? Like are we gonna tell secrets and ask about favorite colors?"

"Talk about our crushes." Hunk gave a very pointed look to Keith who proceeded to face plant into the couch nest.

"That's not a bad idea." Lance reasoned.

"What?! No!" Keith shrieked, scrambling up from the blankets. Allura quirked an eyebrow up at that. Why would Keith react so violently to the idea of talking about crushes?

"What, is your favorite color really that close of a secret? I'd bet 50 gak that it's red."

"Oh, right, of course, favorite colors. How did you know that my favorite color is red?" Keith tilted his head to one side, confused.

"Dude, everything you own is red." Said Pidge.

"Yeah, plus that time with the cookies." Hunk nodded.

"Well, I don't know your favorite colors." Keith complained. "Except Shiro, but he doesn't count."

"Why don't I count?" Shiro feigned hurt.

"Because you're my brother and no one cares what your favorite color is."

"Ouch. What even is it?" Lance asked.

"Purple." Shiro stated.

"Mine is blue, the best color!" Lance grinned. 

"Yeah, and you call Keith predictable." Pidge scoffed. "At least mine isn't the color of my lion. And before you ask, my favorite color is orange."

"You just ruined our color coded theme we had going."

Pidge just stuck her tongue out at Lance who made another offended sound.

"I like red, too" Hunk pipped up.

"You can't go to the dark side with Keith, Hunk! I though you were on my side!" Lance squawked.

"Too bad, he's known me longer." Keith was grinning now.

"Oh god, they're flirting." Pidge moaned.

"What?!" Keith spluttered. Ah, so that's why Keith was so nervous, Allura thought to herself.

"What?" Lance looked genuinely confused. And turned to Allura and Shiro confused. "Why are you guys laughing? I don't get it?"

"I think it's cute." Hunk defended.

"I am very cute!" Lance declared, trying to get his bearings on the conversation.

"Yes, of course you are, Lance. And I'm sure Keith agrees." Allura smiled innocently. She would never give up an oportunity to mercilessly tease Lance. Especially about the crush that Keith apparently had on him.

Keith choked. Loudly. He stared daggers at Allura. She just giggled. Oh this was going to be fun. 

"What's your favorite color, Princess?" Pidge broke up the teasing.

"Her favorite color is pink because Allura is super brooding and dark like that." Lance gleefully interupted.

"It's a good color!" Allura protested.

"What? But pink is such a bright and happy color." Pidge looked confused.

"On Altea, pink was a color of mourning. You'd wear it to funerals and stuff." Lance explained.

"Mother wore pink almost every day." Allura huffed. She knew Lance had a slight affinity for the color as well, it reminded them both of their mother.

"Like mother like daughter." Lance nodded sagely.

"Moving on." Allura said. "The colors thing was good, but I have an Altean game for us to play!" Allura got up and threw open the doors to a cabinet in the wall. She picked up a box from it and hurried back over to the group. 

"This game is called Silver Tongue! So what you do is pick a card, and it will have a word on it most of them are little-used or from a different language so you probably won't know the definition, but it's on the opposite side of the card. Each turn only one person will get to see the definition and they write down the real definition. The rest of us make up a fake definition of the word. Then we shuffle all of the definitions and we have to guess which one we think is real! You get points for getting it right and for getting other people to guess your definiton! Whoever has the most points after three rounds wins!"

"Okay, let's play." Shiro clapped his hands together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And next time, we see the gang have fun with stupid made up word definitions! It's a game I have a lot of fun playing with my friends, and creates so many shenanigans. I'm quite excited to write the paladins playing.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang plays a ridiculous Altean game!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry this is so late! Ive been super busy with graduating high-school and starting a new job. As an apology this chapter is extra cheesy! It's a bit filler-y but hopefully in a fun way? It kind of reads like a montage, sorry if that's not your thing! I added some soft found family moments so hopefully that makes up for it? Chapters will be back to normal after this in terms of story progression. Also fake words are hell to make up like how do people do this?

"Okay!" Lance cleared his throat. "The first word is: 'klaubergaje.' What does it mean!"

"What?!" Pidge gaped. "How do you even spell that??" She looked at Allura for help.

Allura shrugged. "I don't know what it means!"

The seven wrote down their guesses, intermittent with giggles.

"Everyone put theirs in?" Lance asked. When everyone nodded he quickly shuffled them and pulled out the first card.

"Ahem. Klaubergaje: 'when you hit someone over the head with a pole-like object.'"

Keith snorted. "Would aliens really have a word for that specific thing?"

"Why not?" Pidge asked, "German has all sorts of weirdly specific words, why wouldn't Altean?."

"That's true," reasoned Hunk.

"Shut up, I'm not done!" Lance hushed. "Second definition! 'A type of rare fish found on Altea.'"

"See that sounds way more likely!" Keith reasoned. 

"Shh" Hunk shushed Keith, much to his chagrin.

"Third option: 'a medicine used to cure headaches'. Fourth: 'when you sneeze so hard you hit your head on your kneecaps.' Five: 'an illness caused by a type of toxic plant on Altea.' Six: 'a type of martial arts.' And finally, seven: 'a kind of tool.' Wow way to be vague. Okay choose the definition you think is right!"

Coran and Hunk were the only ones who ended up getting it right, much to Keith and Pidge's confusion when Lance revealed that the correct answer was number four.

"How on earth did you get that right?!" Keith spluttered.

Hunk shrugged. "I just picked the one I thought was funniest."

"I knew the definition of the word already!" Coran admitted.

As it turned out, Coran already knew the definitions of almost ALL the words. The rest of the group voted to ban Coran from playing after the first round.

"Why do you know all of this?!" Lance had bemoaned. 

"I'm a very cultured man, Lance!" The older Altean smiled.

Allura found playing with humans much more delightful than any of the other times she'd played with her altean friends and even Lance. None of them knew how to pronounce anything, and occasionally Pidge would even give up and just pronounce the first few letters before just mumbling random sounds.

"The word is hald.. hoildu.." Pidge squinted harder at the little paper card. "Fuck it. The word is haldiblubla." 

Coran looked over her shoulder at the card, after being exiled from playing, he'd taken to helping pronounce the words. "Its Holdinylop, Pidge." 

"Whatever." 

Similar to Pidge's confident mispronunciations, Keith had also stopped trying to get the words right, rather he would just declare "nope" and pick a different card.

Shiro would try his best to get the sounds right but every once and a while he'd frown at a card and look Allura, Lance, or Coran in the eye and say "what the fuck?" Before picking a new card and sending Lance into a fit of laughter.

And all four of the human's had habits of creating absurd or vulgar definitions for every word.

"The word is gaphledormp" Shiro had said.

"The sound Zarkon will make when I suplex him and single-handedly beat the entire Galra empire." Had been Pidge's response.

Allura had no idea what a suplex was, but the answer had still doubled her over in laughter. And then again when Lance inevitably asked what a suplex was and Pidge demonstrated by suplexing Lance.

Once, an Earth English word came up and it turned out to be a word that all four of the human's knew.

"Doppelganger" Lance read. "Oo that's fun to say. Doppelganger!"

"I don't know that one," Coran admitted.

Hunk, Pidge, Keith, and Shiro all shared a look. "We do." Said Shiro. "It's an Earth word. I wonder how they got Earth words in the game?"

"Oh my god, I was right, aliens have totally visited Earth! I told you guys!" Keith shouted. "Oh my god I was right! Oh man, Shiro you owe me so much money!"

"I was hoping you'd forget." Shiro winced.

Allura didn't know if she'd ever had so much fun in her life.

\-----------------------

Lance couldn't stop smiling. His cheeks hurt _so badly_ but the grin just wouldn't leave his face. The castle ship was full of life in a way he hadn't seen since before he could remember. At least not since the war started all those millennia ago. These humans were so full of kindness and Lance found himself so easily attached to them. He'd barley known Hunk for a phoebe and Lance considered the human his best friend (excluding his sister of course)

Hunk had ended up winning their game of Silver Tongue out of sheer dumb luck. Of course, Lance had bragged that Hunk was just that brilliant, no luck needed.

As they were cleaning up, Coran suggested the next activity.

"I propose that we tell stories about our lives before meeting. We could stand to know more about one another."

"You just want to tell us stories about when you were younger, don't you?" Lance smirked.

"Well, if we are sharing our pasts it would only make sense!"

Allura and Lance shared a look and rolled their eyes.

Pidge raised her hand. 

"I'll go first." She took a deep breath, like she was trying to center herself, and suddenly Lance wanted to ask her what was wrong. And maybe feed her those cookie things Hunk made. "So I have an older brother, Matt. I've been trying to find him and my dad, you guys know all that." She shook her head as if to clear it. "Well back on earth, Matt and I were little shits."

"Language." Shiro warned her. "Its true though, I was there."

Pidge rolled her eyes. "Yeah don't act like you weren't in on it too, Shiro. Okay so this one time,"

As Pidge told her story Lance understood more and more how important it was that they find Matt. He had always sympathized with Pidge, knowing he'd do anything to get Allura back if anything happened to her, but as she talked he realized that Matt was important to Shiro and Keith, too. Shiro would often chime in with some related incident that he and Matt had gotten up to, and sometimes Keith would huff a laugh and remind them of the aftermath that he had apparently been left in.

The story eventually turned into reminiscing about Matt. Lance noticed that Hunk hadn't said a word since Pidge had started talking, which was unusual for him. He quickly understood, however, looking at his friend's face. Hunk knew just as well as Lance that their teammates, friends, _needed_ this. The tears glistening in Pidge and Shiro's eyes were carefully not mentioned. 

"And then the fire alarm went off and the whole place got doused in water!" Pidge had been telling the team about how she and Matt had managed to steal a whole pie from the Garrison's cafeteria while Shiro and Matt were still cadets. "And everyone is so preoccupied that they totally don't notice me sneak in the door and grab the pie! I mean it was a little soggy and we got meatloaf banned from the cafeteria, but like is that really a bad thing in the first place? And the pie was still awesome and free."

Lance grinned at his sister and found himself asking "Can we keep her please? We can just like adopt her, I've always wanted a little sister!"

The rest of the team laughed, but Lance realized that he really had started thinking of the green paladin as a surrogate sister. All of them, really, had started to feel like some kind of weird mixed matched space family, and he loved it.

Keith was surprisingly the next person to share. He told them about his and Shiro's parents, and how he picked up some weird skills during his year in the desert as well as coming back to some old ones.

Pidge had started cackling "Did you actually spend your year in the desert brooding and drawing? That is the most hipster bullshit-" 

"Language" Shiro scolded again, but his lips were still curved up in a smirk.

"I didn't just draw." Keith defended. "I built that bike I picked you guys up on!"

"That's even worse! You ride motorcycles on steroids and draw now! You could be a Disney Chanel original movie!"

"They're useful skills! And I used to draw before, too!" Keith whined, but his objections were betrayed by his own laughter.

"Are you any good at drawing?" Lance asked, curious.

Keith shrugged noncommittally. "I guess, I haven't really been able to draw much since Voltron, though and all my sketchbooks are back on Earth, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

"From what I remember, Keith, your stuff is really good." Shiro bragged. "I'm sure we could find some way for you to draw on the castle-ship."

Oh, yes!" Allura clapped her hands together. "There are other monitors like in the bridge that can be used for art! Lance and I would spend hours on them when we were young, though he was much better than me. Maybe you could show Keith how they work?"

Lance nodded mutely in agreement. He wondered what Keith drew in the desert, if he had drawn during his time at the garrison. Suddenly, Lance knew what he was going to spend his time exiled from training doing. He was going to bond with Keith and find answers to all the questions he had come up with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun writing this chapter, it felt so loose and easy to study everyone's character in a relaxed environment. Again, thanks so much for reading, giving kudos, and commenting! It's what fuels my motivation to write!


End file.
